


New Romantics

by FireflysLove



Series: Something Good and Right and Real [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Handwavery, Multi, Peggy Carter Lives, Resurrection, implied Steve/Bucky/Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6803779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflysLove/pseuds/FireflysLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, for fuck's sake, Sharon."</p>
<p>Or, how a newly resurrected Peggy Carter understood Civil War and its aftermath.</p>
<p>Set before Everything Has Changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Romantics

**Author's Note:**

> I give up. This OT3 owns me and there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it. Technically EHC doesn't take into account that Steve, Bucky, and Peggy were all totally a thing during the war, but I'll get to that in a little while.

It’s a surreal experience, watching yourself die. One moment she’s lying in bed, breath rattling in her chest, mind mostly gone. The next, she’s young again, standing… _next to herself?_ She sees her old body die, looks down at herself, as whole as she was in the 1940s. She looks up at her grandniece, holding her old body’s hand with tears running down her face.

Sharon doesn’t seem to notice her.

“She can’t see you,” a voice says from behind Peggy.

“What?” Peggy asks, whirling around.

“Technically speaking, you’re a ghost. At least for a little while, until we can get rid of your pesky body,” the voice says out of thin air.

“Who are you?” Peggy asks.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” the voice says.

“The hell it doesn’t,” Peggy says.

“Fine,” the voice replies. “I’m God, the universe, whatever. The important thing is that you aren’t dead anymore!”

“…Why?” Peggy finally asks.

“Because you were not supposed to live like this,” the voice says, and she understands that it is speaking about her now-dead body.

Her attention is caught by Sharon removing her phone from her pocket, and Peggy ghosts around behind her to see what she’s doing. Peggy sees Steve’s name, and then

_She’s gone in her sleep._

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Sharon,” she says exasperatedly.             

Sharon sniffles, brushes the tears out of her eyes, and stands, pulling the sheet up over the body.

 

Peggy follows Sharon around for the next few days while the funeral preparations are made, then goes, invisibly, to her own funeral. She stands next to where Steve sits, looking not much different than the last day she saw him in 1945. She brushes her hand over his hair, and he looks up as if he felt something.

“You’re only sort of a ghost,” the voice says. “You’re becoming more corporeal.”

“How long?” she asks.

“Not very,” the voice replies. “A day or two. I’d recommend you keep a low profile after. The way events are about to unfold, you would be safest in shelter until the storm blows over.”

 

She’s still invisible when she follows a stolen VW Bug across Europe and sees her grandniece and Steve kiss.

“Oh, for _fuck’s sake,_ Sharon,” Peggy growls. She doesn’t know how much Sharon knows about Steve’s romantic history with _other_ people present, but she knows damn well how much Sharon knows about Peggy’s and Steve’s romantic history. It’s just fucking _weird._

The voice laughs.

 

She’s corporeal again before Siberia, and the voice tells her what happens there. She finds herself directed to Wakanda, where, somehow, the king greets her by name, and directs her to a place to stay.

“I do not know why you were brought here,” T’Challa says. “But you are welcome to stay.”

So she does. She settles in, and is staring out over the forest when a knock sounds on her door. She answers it, not sure what to expect, and finds a young woman standing outside with a puzzled expression on her face. She’s obviously not Wakandan, and something about her screams _Avenger_.

“You are Peggy Carter?” she asks.

“I am…” Peggy says.

“Wanda,” Wanda says, holding out a hand.

“The witch?” Peggy asks.

Wanda makes a face. “I suppose.”

“Apologies,” Peggy says. “I’m… rather new to the coming back from the dead thing.”

Wanda laughs, “It’s not as uncommon as you might think.”

“It… isn’t?” Peggy asks.

“My brother. Technically he’s supposed to dead, but he’s living on a farm in upstate New York,” Wanda replies. “Anyway, I thought you’d like to know that Steve is here.”

Peggy’s stomach gives an odd twist. “Does he know?”

“That you are alive?” Wanda asks. “No. That has been left up to you to decide how and when you do it.”

“Thank you,” Peggy says.

“No problem,” Wanda says. “I will take my leave now.”

Peggy waves absently after her as she leaves and shuts her door.

“You’re going to have to tell him eventually,” the voice says.

“I know,” Peggy says. “But I’ll let him get settled first.”

 

She finally comes to see him two weeks after he arrives in Wakanda.

She takes a long circuitous route through several buildings to get to where she’s been told he’s staying and somehow ends up in a lab staring at the frozen form of Bucky Barnes. It’s a surreal experience, even for someone technically resurrected. It’s even more surreal than the few times she’s seen a glimpse of Steve. She had known about the Winter Soldier during her time as SHIELD’s director, of course, but she hadn’t known who he was. If she had…

Well.

A lot of things happened in the war that never made it into the history books.

So she goes to Steve.

A tap at his door and suddenly she’s face to face with him, and _totally not panicking_. Not at all.

His first reaction is to blink a few times.

“But you’re dead,” he says.

“Apparently so is Wanda’s brother,” Peggy replies. “You came back from the dead, why can’t I?”

“I was frozen for 67 years, _you_ came back from the dead,” Steve says.

“So I did,” Peggy says. “Now, what are you going to do about it?”

He pulls her inside.


End file.
